The longer story is one of the senior partners, who was semi-retiring, gave Lawyer A one of his best clients. Lawyer B wanted the client so he could make partner. Lawyer A refused, saying (a) the senior partners would never go for it and (b) they might run afoul of the bar association ethics committee.

I was curious what penalties/punishments, etc. lawyer A might suffer if he were to hand the client over to Lawyer B.